Coach’s Corner Tip

Making Adjustments

I once bowled a 10 game tournament when I barely moved my feet. Of course, that was 1978 and I was throwing a Yellow Dot soft plastic bowling ball. In today’s game, you can’t bowl a league session without making adjustments. The lanes will not be the same from week to week, and you should not expect them to be the same. The temperature of the building changes, the lane machine goes through cycles of maintenance; you bowl on different pairs of lanes, and so on. Even just changing the person running the lane machine sometimes changes the shot a little, as there might be minor changes in preparing the machine, saturating the wick at the start of running the lanes, or just moving the machine from lane to lane.

Add this to the fact that you are spreading an amount of oil that would fill a quarter-sized, 4” high cylinder across a surface of 39” wide by 40’ in length (or well over 120 square feet), and you begin to see there are a lot of variables in play just in keeping a consistent shot on the lanes from week to week. If your center is successful, give your mechanic a holiday gift.

Given all these variables, how do we even get lined up from week to week in league, much less in tournament play? In league, you can use your previous week’s starting point as a guess for the current week. However, there is such a thing as pre-bowling a league or tournament session. If you assume the behavior of the lanes, your eyes will not be open to what is really out there. Let your eyes guide you to the best way to play the lanes. Remember that in league play you just need to get the ball started in the oil and get the ball to feed out to the dry part of the lane outside the second arrow.

Getting lined up on a lane condition, even in league, is about getting the ball to travel the right distance down the lane to the break point. If the ball takes a break point that is too far down the lane (45’ feet) the ball can look perfect and leave every pin in the back row multiple times. However, a break point closer to 37’ down
the lane will provide a more forgiving reaction that will carry much better. So, you need to start to look for the break point, which isn’t always easy to do. You will need to follow your ball from the arrows to the break point and make a judgment on how far down the lane the ball traveled. If the ball starts to leave a lot of back row pins, move your feet left a little and get the ball to start to roll sooner, usually with less speed.

In tournament play, you need to determine how long the pattern is and how flat the pattern is. Use the rule of pattern length – 31 to determine where the ball will come off the pattern. Start with the ball with which you can best read the lanes, determine the length and flatness of the pattern by rolling the ball at the 7 and 10 pin while hooking it, and then make your best guess at where to stand with what ball to get to that break point. Adjust during practice by changing balls to create more or less length, and using Abralon pads to add surface to either smooth out the ball reaction or get the break point to be earlier on the lane, or both. Once you get the length you want to get a good ball reaction, move your feet left or right to get lined up to the pocket.

Once you get lined up, how do you know how to adjust to changes? In the June and July 2006 issues of Colorado Bowler I presented a two-part series about how lanes change and how to make adjustments as the lanes change. As a summary, lanes go through 4 phases of change. Phase 1 is the fresh condition, which we have already talked about. Phase 2 is when the lanes transition, which is the toughest phase to adjust to. Here, the oil “blends” and the lanes seem to hook less. This is because the oil from the front and middle of the lane moves a little and the back end reaction is blended out. You want to go to a stronger ball or roll the ball earlier (move left and bring your target closer). You will probably need a slight hand position change to create more axis rotation on the ball (side roll – get around the ball a bit). You may also need to use a little less speed.

Again, adjust to what your eyes are telling you to do without any assumptions about what the lane condition should do. You are still looking to create the right shape of ball motion from the front to the back of the lane to give you the best chance of success. In transition you typically get less back end motion, so that break point that you created on the fresh condition is now too long. This is why you often need to move left and get the ball to roll sooner at the same time – so you can maintain an optimum break point on the lane.

As the lanes break down, you hand position will not be as much behind the ball as when the lanes are fresh. The exception to this is when the lanes are very tough, as they often are in ABT tournaments and in some PBA tournaments. As the dry part of the lane gets bigger, you need to get your hand around the side of the ball more. The general rule of thumb here is that by the time you are at or left of the 3rd arrow, you need to start getting your hand around the ball to enable you to carry. Remember, you are always trying to “match up” your ball motion to what the lanes dictate. Your hand position and ball speed will give you the front-to-back ball reaction you need as the lanes change.

So, how much should you move your feet and your target as the lanes change? Back in the ‘70s we adjusted in 1-3 board increments and move the target left slowly in 1-2 board increments. Today the smallest move you should make is about 3-1 – 3 with your feet and one with your target. This could also be a 3-2 move or a 3-3 move, depending upon how the oil breaks down in the front of the lane and how you are playing the lanes.

To simplify, think about taking ½ step left on the lanes. Think of a step left as 5 boards (one dot) with your feet. Move in increments of ½ step, 1 step, or 1 ½ steps at a time, then move your target as far left as you need to in order to maintain about the same break point. To do this, move your feet and draw a line with your eyes to your break point, then bring that line back to your target at the arrows. This is now your new target at that point.

Have you ever moved a board, then 2, then 1, then 1 again, just to shoot 150 and strike on the fill ball? This is what happens if you don’t move enough when the lanes go through a big transition. It’s because you are moving from dry to more dry – you never got your feet left into the oil until that last shot, when you finally moved about 5 boards.

How does my equipment come into play when making adjustments? If the ball you are throwing is clearly not going to give you the shape you want to see on the lane, you need to start to look for another ball. For example, if you just can’t get the ball you are using far enough down the lane, you need to reach for a ball that will get farther down the lane. If you need a ball with a stronger move at the back of the lane, you might need to go from a ball that wants to arc to a ball that wants to flip. However, your ball choice is not a guess – it is a result of understanding how your ball is reacting on the lanes, the reaction you need to see, and knowledge of your equipment.

How can I practice getting better at making adjustments? On a house condition, move to the inside part of the lane, where the oil is flatter and you have less room to make a mistake. Practice changing speed, roll, surface and equipment to start to see how these adjustments affect the way each ball rolls down the lane. Bowl a few games in this part of the lane to break the shot down and try making adjustments. The more you practice this way, the more you will start to understand adjustments and your equipment. This will give you new confidence in making these adjustments during competition.